Ghost Riders in the Sky
by killbothtwins
Summary: Leonard Snart is not quite done yet after the Oculus explodes. Puns are made, things are frozen, and vegetables are eaten. Captain Cold is going to take care of this team if it kills him. Again.
1. Chapter 1

**Title from Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders in the Sky."**

 _ **As the riders loped on by him he heard one call his name**_  
 _ **If you want to save your soul from hell a-riding on our range**_  
 _ **Then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride**_  
 _ **Trying to catch the devil's herd, across these endless skies**_

* * *

It takes Leonard Snart about fifteen seconds to realize he's not dead. Ten to realize he's a ghost. Twenty more to panic, and fifteen to realize he's completely invisible.

Leonard Snart, robber of ATMs and dead thief, is stuck in limbo.

It's taken him less than a minute to realize all of these life-changing (hah) revolutions, because it appears he's materialized onboard the middle of the common room of the _Waverider._ Everyone's dressed in different clothes than Leonard remembers them being in, so it must not be an immediate thing.

"Yo, Mick." He says, curious to see if his partner will sense his presence like he always could when they were both alive. Mick doesn't move. "Damn." Len says.

"Sara? Jax?" No one is moving, and repeating specific names doesn't seem to be working, so he doesn't bother trying it on the rest. He hopes he's not going to go all vengeful spirit on the crew. They'd had enough of that with Chronos. "I never should have watched _Poltergeist_ with Mick and Sara." He says aloud. He hadn't spent half the time with his face pressed into Mick's shirt. He _hadn't._

"Dammit." Leonard says again, dejected. The crew is having a conversation now, half argument and half friendly banter. He wishes he could somehow find a calendar onboard a time machine, find out exactly how long he's been floating around.

"It's only been two months since we started up again." The professor says.

"Oh, thanks." Leonard says.

"There's bound to be _some_ setbacks." Stein continues as if Snart had never spoken, which, technically, he hadn't.

" _Some?_ " Rip repeats, incredulous. "Rory almost burned the Archbishop of Canterbury to a crisp!"

Len laughs, because at least _something's_ normal.

"He was acting all high and mighty." Mick says, not sounding overly concerned with it as he checks his heat gun, a familiar habit Leonard is used to at the end of missions.

" _That's because,_ " Rip storms, " _he's a saint!_ "

Mick grins.

Hunter throws up his hands and storms into his office, a mostly ineffective maneuver because of the glass walls. Idiot.

"Take it easy on him, hey?" Sara says. "Poor little guy doesn't really get jokes."

"Once you and Jax stop moving his furniture an inch to the left, sure." Mick says. She grins at him, batting her eyes innocently as if to say she'd done no such thing.

Leonard looks around, doing a headcount. Jax, along with his counterpart, Stein, Mick, of course, Ray, Sara, and Rip. Still two empty chairs, not counting his own, by Len's count. The lovebirds (hah) must have either finally gotten their act together and kissed or been killed and were starting over sometime else.

And damn it, he was sort of rooting for the former. Being around too many heroes had obviously infected him. It was gross.

And what's a thief supposed to do now he's dead?

* * *

Snoop, obviously.

He snooped.

Turned out Rip had a secret room he'd never bothered to tell anyone about, which was disconcerting to find out about via walking through a wall. The room was filled with weapons, which was mildly concerning as well, but Leonard wasn't really judging, not when the second thing he'd done was check and see if they had his cold gun. (They did. It was in Mick's room.)

No one else really had anything interesting going on, except for the fact that it turned out Ray had been the one leaving the empty carton of milk in the refrigerator, which, really? Mick should have let him sacrifice himself for that one, honestly.

"Miiiiiicccckkkkk." Leonard says, bored. That's one the movies never tell you, that being a ghost is so _boring_. He can't even read or anything, unless someone leaves a book open, which they never do because, apparently, no one is literate onboard this ship except for him.

Not fair really, since Jax sometimes reads ship manuals and Mick has always liked chem books (that is, if he manages to avoid setting them on fire long enough to read them). But Leonard's read all those anyways, mostly because they had explicitly told him not to touch their books.

"Mick." He says. "Mick. MickMickMickMickMickMickMiiiiicccckkkkk-"

Leonard, getting a little carried away, falls off (through) the table he was perched on and into his partner. His hand, inexplicably, catches on something.

"The hell?" Leonard mutters to himself, disentangling his hand to look. He looks at Mick's surprised face, then down at the object he'd touched (?).

It was his ring, attached on a chain to his partner's neck. "Aww, didn't know you cared." Leonard says. "You can't see me, right?"

Mick's eyes search the room for a moment, putting his gloved hand on the chain that held the ring. "Anyone there?"

"Yes." Leonard tells him, sighing.

Mick looks around a moment more before shrugging and tucking the ring back beneath his Henley.

"Interesting." Leonard says aloud. Another thing about being a ghost; it was terrible to be unable to talk to anyone. He filled up the silence admirably with his own voice, though, he thought. "I'm going to have to look into that later."

"Hey, did you call me?" Ray pokes his head into the room. "Could have sworn I heard you say something."

"No." Mick grunts, his hand straying to the spot Len now knew held his ring. "Nothing."

* * *

That night, Leonard goes into Mick's room. It isn't like there was anything better to do, not unless he wants to watch Stein talk to himself in his sleep, which got boring after a while. Actually, maybe he was talking to Jax, not himself. That would be cool (hah). Leonard would test it later. Wasn't like he didn't have the time.

For now, though, a more important experiment.

"Sorry about the creepiness factor." Leonard says to his sleeping partner. "Just gotta check something."

He carefully walks forward, through the bed until he's in reach of his partner. If he could touch him and if he wasn't dead, that is.

"Here goes nothing." Leonard says, and touches the ring. He _feels_ it. It's weird, since he can't feel the t-shirt Mick's wearing, or the bed, or Mick, but he feels the ring. It's cold beneath his palm, like ice, and damn if that thought doesn't make him smile a bit.

He knows nothing else belonging to him acts like this, since apparently the Legends had elected to keep his room intact (sweet, he guesses. Mostly gross.), so it must only be connected to the ring.

"Mick." He says, keeping contact with the ring. "MICK!"

Mick jolts awake, looking around the room with wide eyes, sitting straight up. "Mick?" Leonard says hopefully, but since Mick doesn't seem overly concerned about his dead partner standing inside his bed like Kitty Pryde, it clearly didn't work.

Still, Leonard looks down at the ring thoughtfully. Mick is still searching the room, his hand straying to the heat gun, kept by his bed mostly only because it wouldn't fit under the pillow. Leonard pokes at the ring again. Nothing happens. Interesting.

"Interesting." He says aloud.

Mick shakes his head like his ears are ringing and lays back down, looking jumpy.

"A close one." Leonard tells him, not one for getting discouraged; that stuff was for heroes when _Leonard_ escaped their clutches yet another time. Though he doubts The Flash ever gets discouraged, since Leonard's shot him like three times now and Barry keeps trusting him, like the idiot all heroes are.

"Good night, Mick." Leonard says softly, taking his hand off the ring.

Mick's eyes survey the room for a moment longer before he takes his hand off the heat gun and closes his eyes again. Snart backs up out of the bed and onto solid ground (as much as you can when you're a ghost).

Len's gonna go see if maybe Jax left the TV playing in his room again.

He'd watched more than half of _The Avengers_ before Jax had woken up and turned it off.

* * *

Leonard follows the Legends out on missions a lot, even though he can't actually do anything. At least he doesn't have to worry about changing in the fabrication room, since it seems he's stuck in the clothes he was in when he died. At least his favorite jacket wasn't the worst thing he could have been wearing when he took out the Oculus.

Someone who had royally screwed up one of their jobs once found himself _mysteriously_ freezing to death as his house burned down. Leonard really hopes that poor guy isn't walking around, naked, as a ghost, because some things are really too much even if the guy almost did get them sent back to Iron Heights.

Anyway, Leonard follows them around sometimes, because, as stated before. Really. Boring.

It's because he's following Firestorm, The ATOM, and Mick that Leonard spots the guy sneaking up behind them, with what looks like a phaser from Star Trek. They don't go to the future often, likely because Rip gets tired of them constantly making Star Trek references.

"Uh oh." Leonard says, because they're all still oblivious to Phaser Guy, peering up over the crest of a hill to see if the Time Pirates were finished blowing things up. "Guys?" He says, because he may not be a hero, but he doesn't exactly want other people joining him, "GUYS!"

No one stirs. In desperation, Leonard throws out a hand, hard, and hits Mick in the chest, right where he knows the ring will be. Mick curses and drops, the phaser blast missing him by an inch right as he hits the ground.

Len's hand is cold. The ring is cold. He's cold?

Everything goes dark.

* * *

He comes to laying on the floor of the medbay. He hadn't actually known ghosts could be knocked unconscious, but it's good information to have, even if he does have a hell of a headache. He rolls over with a groan, curious to see what brought him here. Mick's laying on the medbay chair, half reclined and looking pissed, but unharmed.

"There doesn't seem to be anything unusual about either the ring or yourself, Mr. Rory." Stein says, not unkindly, passing Len's ring back to Mick.

"I'm tellin' you professor, that thing was ice cold. Burned." Mick says, slinging it back over his neck anyway. Idiot.

"Well, neither myself nor Mr. Jackson have found any anomalies." Stein says. "Perhaps it was just a byproduct of the blaster fire."

Mick looks unconvinced. Good. Reason he was Leonard's partner for so long.

"Sure. Thanks, doc." Mick's softer with his words now, a little, starting to trust the team and trust himself after Chronos.

Len nods to himself.

And all he has to do is keep Mick from dying, too.

* * *

Leonard catches Mick playing with the ring, in the cargo bay while tinkering with his heat gun.

"You should play cards with Sara." Leonard tells him companionably, walking through a wall of crates so he can splay his legs out in the corner, and not worry about anyone walking through him.

Mick keeps doing what he's doing. It feels like he's being ignored, which Leonard has never liked.

"Seriously, I bet she's lonely." Leonard wheedles to no one. "Probably sharpening her knives or doing something scary with her batons." It had taken a while for Leonard to figure out what was wrong with Sara, since she didn't talk about her sister much. Now he knows, it's obvious in hindsight. It's actually a wonder Sara hasn't hijacked the _Waverider_ yet.

Mick's looking at the ring again, ignoring the innards of his heat gun and looking considering.

"Fine." Leonard says, "Let's try that thing again."

He walks over to Mick. Puts a hand on the ring. Nothing. Not a jolt, not a feeling, nothing. Leonard can still feel the base outline of the thing, but nothing else.

He supposes he must have drained his ghost battery, or whatever's keeping him here, when he saved Mick. Interesting as usual- just not particularly helpful.

Leonard pulls his hand away, not willing to admit to himself that he might be disappointed.

"Whatever." He tells Mick regardless. "I didn't want to talk to you anyway."

Mick grunts and lets the ring drop back into his shirt. When he starts reassembling the heat gun, it's with just a little too much force.

Leonard idly wonders how long it takes, exactly, for a ghost battery to charge. Not that he's lonely or anything.

Sara enters, waving her baton. "Wanna spar?" She asks Mick. Mick grunts, slamming the final piece of the heat gun into place.

"Yes." Leonard tells him. "Say yes."

"Sure." Mick says. "Nothin' better to do."

Leonard grins.

It's when Mick is showering, later, sweaty and bruised from his fight with Sara (she won), that Leonard tries his ring again. Mick had put it on the counter outside the bathroom. Leonard listens to the running water inside, then reaches for his ring.

It's not the same as before - it seems his ghost battery is still recharging - but Leonard can feel the ring, cold despite the heat curling out in waves from the bathroom. Len feels strangely tired again. Seems he's still recharging, too.

Mick steps out of the shower in sweatpants and an old t-shirt. When he slings the jewelry back around his neck, he pauses and shivers.


	2. Chapter 2

Things really go to hell when they go to the 1940's. The atomic bomb and splitting off the team is bad enough, but then Rip decides to _punch Mick in the face and put him in a stasis chair._ A terrible idea for anyone, but especially for someone who would love nothing more than to burn you to a crisp. But then again, Leonard hasn't been a huge fan of Rip, not since Jax told him what happened when they were captured by Time Pirates.

When Mick's put in the stasis field, though, with Len's ring, Leonard starts to feel a little weird. The world wavers for a moment, turning blue, and he blinks dizzily. When he opens his eyes, Mick is growling at what looks like Oliver Queen, (whom Len suspected was the Arrow even before Sara went around screaming his name is 2046, as he'll maintain) and there's someone new onboard.

It's not till later that it occurs to Leonard to be _very, very_ grateful he'd somehow gotten locked inside the stasis field with Mick.

It can even make a ghost shiver to think about spending half a century trapped underwater with no company except for a partner who's dead to the world.

They pick up the rest of the team, in various themes of the nick of time.

They can't find Rip, which Leonard can't really find in himself to be sad about. More than likely, he just went sometime else and was actually following the rules. No rule-breaking, no ripples for Nate, the new guy, to track. Too bad, so sad.

"All right, we got the team back together!" Ray says. "What do you say we kick some Abomination butt?"

"Wait, don't we have one more to pick up?" Nate asks, scrunching his nose. He flips through the notebook he has with him. "Yeah, I definitely picked up some history anomalies that have to do with Leonard Sna-"

Mick growls harshly, folding his arms and looking as if he'd like nothing more than to strangle the historian. "We have everybody."

"But-" Nate gets cut off by a less-than gentle elbow on Ray's part and shoots the ATOM a betrayed look.

"Let's go." Mick says, and Leonard grins.

"Aww, you miss me." He says. He follows Mick out, not really wanting to hear how the rest of the team explains why, exactly, Leonard Snart isn't coming home.

* * *

Things go all right after that, mostly, and the girl they pick up is a looker and smart too; if either Sara or Mick doesn't take an interest Leonard will be sorely disappointed, for his _legacy._

The new guy is all right, too, Leonard supposes. He hopes Mick manages to keep from murdering him, which actually becomes easier once the new guy gains superpowers of his own, because of course he does.

Japan and Mick's lifelong fascination with ninjas (Leonard had once snuck a copy of a Jackie Chan flick into juvie for Mick's birthday) is fun, if a little disastrous.

Mick is starting to warm up (hah) to the new girl, and, as Len had hoped, Ray as well. It means Mick sulks less often, which means less things get set on fire.

"Okay, today's the day." Leonard says, bouncing on his toes a little like an athlete in a warm-up. "Common, you can do it." He'd decided a week ago that this would be the day he tried to interact with something besides his old ring.

He's going to start small and isolated, since he doesn't really favor the idea of someone getting spooked and calling an exorcist or something.

He's in his empty room, now, having a staredown with a picture frame on the bedside table. Small enough he could (hopefully) knock it over without too much stress, but big enough the normal jostle of a timeship could have believably done the job.

The room is kept darkened and eerily silent, everything just as Leonard had left it that fateful morning. There's still a bookmarked book on the stand.

"You took down an entire fleet of corrupt Time Masters, a device that could manipulate the future, and, hardest of all, raised Lisa as a teenager." Leonard mutters to himself. "You can knock down a stupid picture."

He steps closer, pulling himself into calm like he'd done a million times before. Doesn't do to have _nerves_ on a bank job or an armored car heist, after all.

He centers himself, focusing on keeping his palm steady like he's picking some rich guy's pocket. The idea of five-finger discounting himself to the Arrow's driver's license amuses him, and he almost doesn't notice his palm making contact with the picture.

Leonard pushes and it falls. Like he was solid as anything. He grins at his own accomplishment. He gets the feeling it'll be a while before he can interact with anything else, to let his battery charge, but it still feels like a little victory.

The door swishes open, briefly surprising Snart. Sara enters, looking wary and with batons in hand.

"Someone there?" She asks. Her eyes flicker around the room like she feels guilty just being there. "Is someone there?" She asks again, louder.

Her eyes land on the now-overturned picture frame. Sara steps closer and rights it. "Gideon, do you sense any lifeforms here?"

"No, Captain Lance." Gideon says pleasantly. "No anomalies detected."

"Right." Sara says, giving the picture another suspicious glance before stepping back out of the room.

"Aww, she misses me." Leonard tells Gideon. "Who knew I was so popular?"

Gideon, predictably, says nothing.

"Ah, what do you know?" Leonard asks the AI irritably.

* * *

Leonard keeps practicing his ability to interact. It's harder than you would think. So far, the biggest he's managed to move is about the size of his forearm. Whenever he tries to pick up a pencil, he only gets as far as a weak line before losing concentration and having it slip through his fingers. He gets it. Not the greatest guy when alive. Biggest cosmic joke ever.

He doesn't let this distract him, though. There's still _plenty_ to do.

"You should eat healthier." He tells Mick, who is punching in a mess of sodium and salts into Gideon's food processor, which works like a Star Trek replicator. Leonard liked to eat healthy when possible, which meant for the most part his partner was forced to do the same or else starve.

"That's bad for you." Leonard tells him, leaning against the wall next to him. The ghost reaches out a hand and presses the button that will put carrots on the plate, smirking.

The little door opens. Mick stares at the orange vegetables on his plate. "Gideon, there a glitch in this thing?"

"Not that I can detect, Mr. Rory." Gideon says.

"Huh." Mick grunts. "Haircut must have messed with it."

Still, he eats it, though he makes a face like he's eating glass.

Mick shoves Ray into a wall the next time he sees him, which Len considers an acceptable sacrifice.

The next time, when Leonard punches in the sequence for spinach, Mick stares at it again, perplexed. Leonard smirks as he grunts and sits down to eat anyway.

The fifth time, Mick harshly puts his plate on the table and begins to disassemble the food processor.

"I can assure you, Mr. Rory, that as before, I have not found anything wrong with the system." Gideon says from the ceiling.

"Clearly there's somethin' wrong with somethin'." Mick grunts out, a screwdriver between his teeth. "Cause I hate vegetables."

Both Leonard and Mick turn when they hear Jax's footfalls. "Um." The young man says, taking in the scene in front of him. "I forgot I'm actually not hungry."

Mick snags him by the collar. "This thing acting up for you, too?"

"Um." Jax says uncertainly. "No?"

Leonard totally _has_ been messing with Jax's Ipod, though, and hiding all of his left shoes.

Mick gestures wordlessly at the salad beside the hamburger on his plate.

"I thought you liked salad?" Jax says. "You're always eating that healthy stuff."

Leonard almost smothers himself on a laugh.

"No." Mick says, grabbing at Jax's shirtfront. "I hate it. It's this stupid thing."

"The fact that it's disassembled?" Jax asks. Mick growls. "All right, all right, I'll help you fix it."

For a week after that, Leonard forces Jax to eat something healthy with each meal, too.

* * *

"You guys need parental guidance." Leonard tells the team as they're being shot at by some guys with machine guns and attacked by guys with machetes. "Rip, for all his faults, at least tried to be a grown-up sometimes." Albeit the deadbeat dad that really shouldn't have been in charge of the kiddies.

Mick laughs loudly as his gun spits out a burst of fire that takes out a cluster of trees and a group of mercenaries. Leonard isn't _jealous,_ he just hasn't gotten to freeze anything with his cold gun in a long time.

"Firestorm, have you gotten eyes on the target yet?" Sara asks her comm, shooting back with a machine gun she'd recently liberated from a woman who would no longer be using any type of weapon. Leonard can't hear the reply, since he doesn't have comms, but he does see Mick and Sara wince.

"I'm guessing it's a no." Leonard says to the dead man lying at his feet. He really should just go back to the ship on these missions; they wouldn't be good for his heart if it was actually possible for him to have a heart attack.

Sara whirls around, searching the sky for Stein and Jax, who are no longer in sight. It's because of her eye in the sky that she doesn't notice the assassin creeping up behind the stack of barrels behind her, a gun trained steadily on her head.

Leonard curses, closing his eyes. "I wish I'd gotten killed protecting a group of Girl Scouts." He says. "At least then, I would only have to worry about their cookie sales." Although Lisa had been a Girl Scout, for a week or so until she got bored of it and made Leonard run the cookie scam with her.

First, he tries Sara, tapping her on the shoulder desperately and shouting into her ear. It doesn't work, and time is clearly running out, so Leonard sprints over to Mick. He grabs the ring with both hands and screeches. "MICK, SARA!"

Mick starts, but doesn't even hesitate, running for the assassin and tackling her, going down just as the first shot rings out. Amaya, attention caught, dispatches the assassin with what looks suspiciously like a crocodile, and Leonard sighs with relief and exertion, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead.

"How the hell?" Sara asks Mick, who shrugs as if only now thinking about it.

"Got a weird feeling." Mick says, then gets distracted as something large blows up in the background. The two roll off of each other and run back into the fight. Leonard rolls his eyes. He supposes he should take advantage of being invulnerable and see if he can wake up Stein/Jax, who are unconscious under a tree.

It takes some creativity, which mostly involves Leonard spilling a water bottle on their faces. His solutions don't have to be _pretty,_ they just have to work, all right?

* * *

Mick has always been a broody sort of guy, but it doesn't exactly mean Leonard likes it when he locks himself into the cargo bay and meticulously cleans his gun and then Leonard's, which is starting to get dusty.

Ray walks in, looking sympathetic and bearing a plate of six sandwiches, most likely only one of which is for Raymond himself.

"I'm not hungry." Mick growls, which Leonard knows is a lie because Mick is _always_ hungry. It's a downside of being so big; though Leonard always stole more than enough food for all of them.

Raymond shoots him a look that suggests he's losing his touch as a scary villain and also he should eat his sandwiches. Mick does. Leonard is impressed.

"I could take a look at that ring if you want, you know." Ray says, making Mick glare. Again, it doesn't really have an effect, which is either suicidal, brave, or suggests that he knows about Mick's secret marshmallow filling.

"It was _cold_ again, I swear." Mick says. Leonard feels kind of bad. Mick has looked jumpy since the fight, and it's pretty clear he hasn't been sleeping very well.

"I believe you." Ray says earnestly, but that's how he says everything. Mick sighs and takes the ring off his neck with one hand, giving it to Ray, who takes it with great care that makes both criminals roll their eyes.

Raymond practically bounces over to his microscope and equipment, which are set up in the corner due to the lack of a proper lab. Mick slots the last piece of the cold gun into place and places it back in the box, looking at it with an unidentifiable emotion on his face before shutting the lid and going over to where Palmer is working.

Ray lifts an eyebrow as he moves away from his computer.

"I"m not saying anything, but-"

Mick's eyebrows go up, too.

"There _is_ a little bit of damage on this thing from something in low temperatures."

Mick looks as if he doesn't quite know what to say.

"It's not definitive, though, Mick." Ray warns him. "I have no way of telling when this happened. I don't have the equipment or the know-how. It could have happened in a million ways, even before he, you know." Ray still can't say that Leonard died. "Too long in the snow, left it in the freezer, even from working on his cold gun."

Mick nods. "How'd you see this? The kid couldn't find anything."

Ray grins. "Jax isn't me." He says. "He's smart, but he's also a mechanic. He works with cars, and those are mostly concerned with getting too hot. When something gets too hot in a car, something goes boom. They don't know cold damage like I do. In fact, I gave myself frostbite once with a venting system on the suit."

Mick takes the ring back and slips it over his neck.

"Mick, it could mean nothing at all." Ray warns. "I didn't find any devices that could have made it go to that temperature."

"I know, Raymond." Mick says, and goes back to his worktable.

* * *

The Civil War is amusing, until it's not, and then it's _really_ not.

Leonard looks down at the gruesome mess on the ground. "That's a zombie." He says. "Most definitely a zombie."

From beside him, Stein makes a gagging noise. Who knew the professor had such a soft stomach?

Still, though, Leonard isn't a huge fan of the undead, either, ironic as it is.

He follows the rest of the crew back to the _Waverider,_ trying not to watch as Jax uses a water bottle to scrub harshly at his bloodied hands. Raymond looks worried when they arrive, asking questions a mile a minute.

"And someone put sprouts on my sandwich." Mick says, breathing labored. Leonard smiles a tight smile. As if Ray would have made that mistake. The poor kid was still trying to get Mick to like him, up to and including indulging his junk food obsession. Leonard had to utilize his ghost skills for that particular healthy sandwich.

Leonard eyes his partner again. He doesn't look so good. He moves to stand closer to him. Why hasn't anyone noticed yet? "Mick?" He asks, which is when, of course, he collapses.

Amusing as it is watching the crew carry their largest member to the medbay, it's not so amusing watching the veiled fear in everyone's eyes or watching the crew break up into grim groups for their separate tasks.

"Raymond," Mick growls. His eyes briefly flicker over, then back, to where Leonard is slouched against the wall. Leonard raises an eyebrow. Maybe being almost dead makes you able to see the dead. Leonard dismisses the thought because Mick is _not_ dying today. "I'm counting on you."

Zombie Mick is _terrifying,_ Leonard must admit. Not very easy on the eyes.

Leonard warily watches Mick, sprawled on the floor. The stun device Ray had used on him seemed to be wearing off far quicker than Len knew was normal, since Rip had used it to get them all the way from Central to wherever the hell they'd had their first team meeting.

"You better not turn into a freaking zombie forever, Mick." Leonard tells him. "I'm going to be really pissed if you join me before you're geriatric."

Zombie Mick stirs, which isn't exactly what Leonard had meant. Leonard refuses to admit he screeches when Mick lurches towards (and through) him. Leonard instinctively steps back and into the wall, where he falls out and again phases through Raymond.

It looks like they're gearing up to go in, which is just perfect.

"I wish we'd stayed at home." Leonard says, rubbing the bridge of his nose and not really meaning it.

Leonard follows Ray inside, glancing around for Mick, though it's not like he could actually do anything, unless zombies really hated carrots or being mildly touched by a cold wind.

"Lisa made Mick and me watch _The Walking Dead,_ you know." Leonard rambles to Ray. "I hated it. Thought it was too gory." Ray hears what is more than likely the ship settling and startles, holding the fire extinguisher up in ostensible self-defense. "Mick liked it. Enough things got set on fire, I guess."

Leonard holds his arms closer to himself, not willing to admit the darkened, eerie atmosphere is getting to him almost as much as it is the billionaire.

Mick is still nowhere to be seen, having apparently moved on once Leonard left. Ray clearly doesn't have any experience in sneaking around, either, since each step sounds like he's hitting the floor with a hammer.

"Raymond!" Leonard yelps, catching something moving out of the corner of his eye. Oblivious, Ray sweeps his flashlight beam to the opposite side of the room. As he turns, he catches a zombie fist to the face and goes down, hard.

Ray lands with a clang and doesn't get up.

Mick starts for him.

Leonard curses and steps in front of him. Though Mick could easily go through him as if he wasn't even there, he pauses.

"Mick." Leonard says. Mick's zombie eyes are super creepy. "Mick, remember, it's me." Mick tilts his head. "Yeah, remember that heist in '04?" Leonard says, hoping Ray will wake up. No such luck. "Halloween? You dressed up as a fireman, I think, and I was Captain America."

Mick snarls.

"Mick, remember? You punched a zombie in the face that day." And if he's a little desperate, okay, he's a ghost talking to a zombie. That's bound to mess with anyone's emotional state.

Mick, either disinterested or dissuaded, lurches the other direction, leaving Ray to snooze peacefully on the floor. Leonard lets out a puff of air that slightly freezes a cooling pipe next to him. "Thanks." Leonard says, sliding down to lean on the wall in relief and nodding to Raymond. "Hate to be stuck in purgatory with no company except _that_ guy."


	3. Chapter 3

After the zombies, Sara, their newly appointed leader, decides to give them some off time, despite the fact that no one actually wants it.

They stop back in 2016.

Raymond drags Amaya to see the future, while Stein goes to visit his wife and Jax his mom. Who knows what Nate is doing, though Len suspects he's going to the library, because he's a dork.

Leonard follows Mick for a while until he turns into a seedy bar with at least three pickpockets milling around outside. Been there, done that. He doesn't really need to see Mick get into _another_ bar fight.

Leonard returns to the ship, and Sara follows shortly after, looking pissed. Meeting with the family must not have gone so well.

To Leonard's surprise, another blonde girl follows after her.

"Sara." She says, with a desperation Leonard recognizes. "Sara!"

"Well, well. You must be the dead sister." Leonard says, draping himself against the wall of the _Waverider._ "You have the same chin, you know."

The woman spins to look at him. "You can see me?"

Leonard phases a hand through the bulkhead in response. "We are, quite literally, in the same boat."

She eyes him suspiciously, eyes flicking up to take in his boots and tattered jacket. "I guess. Laurel Lance. What's your name?"

"Leonard Snart." Leonard pushes off the wall to walk next to her.

"That is, quite possibly, the worst name I've ever heard." Laurel tells him.

"You and me both, sweetheart." Leonard tells her with a charming grin. "But you are simply to _die for."_

"Oh," Laurel says, the wariness in her eyes dissipating somewhat, "Your puns are _killer._ "

"A Lance with a sense of humor?" Leonard asks, pleased. "Want to go have some fun?"

"Aren't you afraid you'll miss your ride?" Laurel asks.

"That lovely sister of yours has mandated 24 hours leave since Mick tried to eat Stein." Leonard says.

Laurel raises an eyebrow.

"Not what it sounds like." Leonard says. "Anyway, we have time to catch a movie."

" _Back to the Future_?" Laurel suggests. "They're playing a rerun."

"Sounds delightful." Leonard says, though it's a little on the nose. He offers up his arm to her, which she takes.

"Should we leave Sara here alone?" Laurel asks doubtfully.

They both turn to look at the assassin. She's throwing knives into the wall, forcefully. Each one hits with a little more force than the last, making little nicks that Leonard is sure Rip is going to complain about if he ever comes back.

"Nah, I think she's good." Leonard says.

"Yeah." Laurel agrees. "Let's go."

The theater is some rundown type thing, right on the edge of the Glades and saved from the earthquakes. It's charming, really, though Leonard won't admit it.

"Too bad we can't eat." Leonard says, gesturing to the beat up old stand built into the wall. Likely, it hasn't seen a cleaning since the thing was built in 1973. "I'd love to see if it really is possible to get food poisoning from popcorn." Laurel glares at him. "Never mind." Leonard says.

They go into the theater that's playing _Back to the Future._ Leonard's not actually sure what Laurel was like when she was alive, because she's acting like she's never snuck into a movie in her life. Leonard's never _paid_ for a movie in his life, except for the one time Ray made the whole team go to one, and even then Leonard used some pretentious-looking guy's wallet.

"Calm down." Leonard says. "It's not like we're going to get arrested." Though his fingers are already itching to pick some pockets after so long on the _Waverider._

"Oh, shut up." Laurel punches his arm, hard.

"How are you the meaner sister and you're not even the assassin?" Leonard whines, rubbing his arm.

"Because I want to see _Back to the Future._ " Laurel sniffs and plops herself into a rickety old theater seat. Leonard rolls his eyes and sits next to her.

Before the movie even starts, there are two teenagers making out in the back row like they very well might die if their tongues are not in each other's mouths _right now._ Without any discussion, the two ghosts abandon their seats and go to mess with the teenagers. Laurel looks particularly delighted, and Leonard can't help but wonder what Sara's first date was like.

Leonard has been practicing his ghost powers for just this occasion. He picks up some popcorn off the dirty floor and tosses it at their heads. It pings off and the two separate with a sucking noise. Laurel and Len crinkle their noses at the sound.

The teenagers shrug when they find nothing but empty seats behind them.

"Weak." Laurel tells Leonard.

"Oh, you can do better?" Leonard is actually curious disguised as challenging.

Laurel grins cockily at him. She leans up next to them, real close, and whispers, " _boo."_ They jump a mile high, looking around wildly. The boy flings his popcorn over his lap in surprise, and a woman in the row in front of them looks back disapprovingly.

"I think we could convince them we're the ghosts of a couple killed in the movie theater." Leonard says, impressed.

"We coul- _oh,_ it's on." Laurel drags Leonard back into his seat as the first strains of music begin to play.

Leonard considers arguing, until he realizes he hasn't seen this movie in a while and it's actually kind of awesome. Shame they weren't sticking around longer; they could have watched all three. Laurel looks pleased with herself.

They heckle the screen occasionally, and once throw popcorn at a rude woman on a cell phone, but otherwise, they're pretty good.

"Well, thanks for the outing." Leonard drawls. "I am being _dead serious_ when I say this is the best conversation I've had in months."

"Stop, you _slay me._ " Laurel says, walking him towards the direction of the _Waverider._

Leonard grins; no one appreciates a good pun these days.

They idle at the door of the _Waverider;_ they've been there for a while now and the crew is starting to trickle back, slowly but surely.

"Sure you don't want to come?" Leonard asks, though he never expected otherwise. He understands the urge to want to stay with your home.

"Sorry." Laurel says, kissing him on the cheek. "You'll take care of my sister?"

"I will." Leonard says. "I left a sister behind, too."

"I'll keep an eye out." Laurel says.

Leonard shoots her a sharp grin, uncomfortable with the level of emotion. "If you ever come back to life, put in a good word for me."

"Who says I'm coming back to life?" Laurel asks, then reconsiders at his unconvinced look. "Okay. If I do, I'll call everyone and tell them you died a hero." She kisses him again and starts to walk the opposite direction.

"Wait, that's the opposite of what I want!" Leonard calls after her. "You better tell them I kicked a puppy or something!"

Laurel's deep laugh follows her down the street.

Mick, who now has a black eye, comes stumbling up to where the _Waverider_ is still cloaked in a park. He shakes his head like he caught the tail end of the statement, but shrugs and enters the timeship, wiping what looks like ash off his shoulder.

* * *

"I…" Nate says. "I did not know we had a stash of alcohol onboard."

" _You_ don't." Mick slurs, gesturing with a bottle of something that looks strong and old. "You earn this when you earn it."

Sara is sprawled out on the floor of what used to be Rip's office, drinking out of a glass, unlike Mick, who's skipping that step and going straight for the bottle. Jax passes a glass back to her and she refills it for him and hands it back.

"So I don't earn it, but the twelve year old kid does?" Nate asks, looking amused rather than put out.

Jax scowls up at him, but forgets what he's doing halfway through and grins into his glass. "Hey, I'm 21 now!" He says. "Not 'ven illegal."

Other members of the crew are draped over various pieces of furniture in the room in various states of disarray; the only ones missing are Amaya and Stein. As Nate notes the absence of the team members, Stein steps into the room, gracefully avoiding Sara's legs. He sets two more glasses down, one of which Palmer takes and one he takes.

"What are we celebrating?" Nate asks, ignoring Sara's grumble at the use of we again.

Rory is about a thousand sheets to the wind by now and squints up at him like he's being an idiot. "Nothing, idiot." He says.

Stein takes a looong drag of something so strong Jax's eyes are watering. "It has been one year since the Oculus, more or less, should you discount the fact that the actual event happened outside time itself."

"Oh." Nate says. "Amaya and I will watch the bridge."

Ray drops off his chair with a thump.

* * *

Leonard sighs. He hadn't made any significant advances in terms of powers in the last week, and he's tired of it. Not even messing with Palmer is lifting his spirits (hah), though he does take great pleasure in watching the genius try and figure out how he keeps getting rickrolled whenever he touches a button on the _Waverider._

Also, Mick is grumpy.

This _might_ have to do with the fact that Leonard has gotten bored a lot this week, and has been testing out his ghost powers at night using his ring as a conduit.

He resolves not to do that today. Mick is sitting stiffer than usual in his seat on the _Waverider,_ dark rings under his eyes. He must have woken up when Leonard tried to be heard by just singing _Bohemian Rhapsody_ over and over. No matter what he tries, no one can really hear what he's saying, though Mick seems to sense it, sometimes. Even that is spotty at best.

The _Waverider_ has been floating in the timestream for two days already, doing automated repairs that Gideon assured them were essential. Personally, Leonard thought what Gideon meant was "I want to get a break from watching out for you suicidal losers all the time," but that was just Leonard.

The specter puts his chin in his hands. He's folded up on Jax's jumpseat, legs tucked under him. "I'm bored." Leonard tells Sara, who is piloting.

Sara, predictably, ignores him.

Leonard imagines what her response would be, could she hear him, if she would play cards with him or spar. Leonard is interrupted from these rather depressing thoughts when the ship lurches to the right, hard. Surprised, Leonard loses his concentration and tumbles out of the jumpseat.

"Hit a pothole?" Mick asks, grunting. Amaya, the new girl and the only other one on the bridge besides Sara and Mick, looks at him like she thinks he's being patently ridiculous.

"She's acting up." Sara says, fighting the control panel. "What the hell?"

Mick presses a button on the table. "Kid? You doin' something down there?"

Jax's frantic voice answers his. "I have no idea! The time drive is acting up!" Jax curses, and Leonard slips away, getting to the engine room in a matter of seconds without the need for pesky things like doors or ceilings.

He stops short. "Who the _hell_ are you?" Leonard asks the man standing by the controls. Jax runs by the two of them, oblivious.

"I'm righting what was wrong." The man snarls. There's something familiar about his stuck-up manner that nudges at Leonard. That, added to the fact that he's a ghost as well…

"You're a Time Master." Leonard says.

The man looks smug. "I'm going to fix what you and your band of _criminals_ broke."

"By breaking things?" Leonard asks, raising an eyebrow. It's not like he takes offense to being called a lawbreaker, though he suspects he was supposed to.

"By setting history back on it's natural course!" The Time Master screams, and Leonard knows insanity when he sees it. "This can only happen if those who put it off course are eradicated."

Leonard winces. "You really need some help, buddy. You're dead. The Time Masters are dead. No point in killing the Legends now." Even using the stupid name makes him cringe a little.

Something explodes in the background.

"They must pay." The Time Master says. The ship rocks again, sending Jax sliding across the floor before his sneakers find purchase and he grabs onto something on the wall. "My name is Chaucer Reeves. I was one of the best Time Masters."

"Well, if you couldn't have stopped me from kicking all of their butts, you probably weren't that good." Leonard smirks, folding his arms over his chest even though his hands ache to punch.

Reeves' eyes grow sharper. " _You_ blew up the Oculus."

"Damn right." Leonard says. "Even got the incorporeality to prove it." He twirls a finger. "Now, are you going to let my friends go, or am I going to have to kill you?" He pauses. "Again."

Somehow, the Time Master doesn't seem to find this very funny. Len thinks it's hilarious.

"I will reset time to the way it is supposed to be as the Oculus said!"

Leonard grins guilelessly, then leaps forwards and punches Reeves directly in the nose.

The dumb idiot actually looks _shocked,_ like maybe he hadn't expected the dead criminal with nothing better to do to actually sock him one. Reeves clutches at his nose, which slowly but surely drips blood in a _very_ satisfying manner.

"You-!" He sputters as Leonard watches.

Leonard grins. "You shouldn't have messed with my crew."

Up until now, the two specters have been ignoring the hubbub in the background, letting people run through and around them. Now, though, Jax skids to a stop, which makes Mick, who had arrived for help with repairs. run into him. "Uh, Mick?" Jax says, pausing with a futuristic-looking monkey wrench in his hand. "Is that blood on the floor?"

Mick stops too, dead (hah) in the middle of the hallway. Reeves snarls at Leonard. "This isn't over." He says, and takes a running leap through the wall and somewhere else. The commotion stops and the ship stabilizes.

Mick is still examining the floor, crouched next to Jax. "Looks damn like it, kid." He says. "You cut yourself?"

Jax shakes his head, checking his arms and feet as an afterthought and finding nothing but engine grease.

"Huh." Mick says. "Ship's fixed."

"Yeah." Jax agrees noncommittally. They're both still staring at the blood on the floor; it must have been fairly creepy to watch it appear from nowhere, though Leonard definitely doesn't regret punching that guy in the face.

"Gideon?" Jax asks.

"Yes, Mr. Jackson?"

"Can you tell us whose blood this is?"

"It does not match that of any crewmember." Gideon says. "However, I have not detected any additional lifeforms." She sounds miffed at that, Leonard would say, except that she's not really a person.

"It doesn't match anyone onboard?" Mick says. "No one who's ever been on the _Waverider_ before, either?"

"Negative, Mr. Rory."

"Looks like we got a saboteur." Mick says, widening his eyes into his Heatwave look to tease Jax, and Leonard would almost say he looks disappointed.


	4. Chapter 4

Leonard's more on edge the next few days, unsure how the Time Master got onboard and off again. The crew is jumpy, too, and Snart keeps his pranks at a minimum. Except for getting Mick to eat his vegetables, though his partner seems to have given up on fighting that front. Leonard will give him a cupcake occasionally, as a reward. When Mick had almost killed himself in that mine shaft in the Wild West, Leonard had given him nothing but salads and wheat bread for a week.

"Any leads on whoever made the _Waverider_ go all whacky?" Jax asks Sara as she sits in Rip's office - her office, really - going over some charts and maps.

"Not a one." Sara says. "Gideon's pissed she can't figure it out."

"I am not, Captain Lance." Gideon says, but she sounds pissed. "I merely stated that there are no known factors that could affect my systems to this extent."

" _Pissed._ " Sara whispers behind a hand to Jax, who grins.

"My own diagnostics have not turned anything up, either, Ms. Lance." Stein says, entering and sinking down into a chair, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. Like Leonard said, they'd all been tense, with each of the crew working around the clock (though that was sort of complicated, when they were literally inside the timestream).

Sara looks thoughtful. "Until we figure out what messed with our systems, I don't see how we can leave the timestream."

"You mean _who_ messed with us." Mick says, leaning in the doorway. "Unless you forgot the blood that came out of thin air."

Sara drums her fingers on the table. "Right." She says. "We're not leaving the timestream." She decides.

"Aye, Captain." Mick gives a sloppy salute and turns on his heel. "I'll go tell the others."

Leonard stands to his feet and follows him out, eyes still searching the room for the dead Time Master.

"Blondie says we're staying in the Timestream for a while." Mick tells Amaya, who is reading a book in her jumpseat.

"Why?" Ray, coming in from the gym judging by his sweatpants, asks.

"Doesn't want us to die if that guy comes back." Mick grunts.

"Well, then, what are we going to do in the meantime?" Ray pouts.

* * *

"Movie night!" Jax calls from somewhere on the ship, and Leonard looks up with interest from where he'd been trying to tie all of Mick's socks together.

Leonard wanders into the hall, finding Amaya there already.

"I don't understand why we need a movie night." Amaya says to Ray, who is walking beside her.

"It's _Star Wars_ night!" Ray says. "Everyone has to see _Star Wars._ "

Leonard nods. "I actually agree with you for once, Raymond." He says and continues following them down the hallway. He suspects they've converted the bridge to a movie room, and he turns out to be correct. Sara is lounging on the floor with blankets and popcorn, and Mick just sits in his jumpseat sideways. Jax is busy with the movie while Stein fusses over his work and Nate distributes popcorn.

"I just don't see why you like this movie so much." Amaya says. "You can't even go a day without referencing it."

"That's cause you're from the 1940s and you've never even seen a good movie." Jax says decisively.

"True." Leonard says.

"Fine." Amaya says, sitting primly in the jumpseat that used to be Leonard's. Mick shoots her a dirty look but doesn't say anything.

The title scrawl starts rolling, and everyone in the room is immediately enraptured, though Leonard knows for a fact Mick has seen _A New Hope_ at least three times, because Leonard was the one who made him watch it.

Leonard settles next to his partner, sitting on the floor and leaning on Mick's seat. Who doesn't love _Star Wars,_ really?

"Hey blondie." Mick says halfway through the movie. "Who's hotter, Han Solo or Princess Leia?"

"Why are you only asking her?" Ray sounds offended. "We have opinions, too."

Sara is lost in thought for a moment. "Luke Skywalker." She decides eventually.

"That wasn't an option!" Mick says. "Who would choose that goodie-two-shoes over Han Solo? Or Leia?"

" _Shh!_ " Amaya hisses, apparently lost in the movie and offended by the amount of noise her teammates are making.

"Sorry." Sara tells her, or maybe Mick, who's still sulking over her choice of hero. "Leia's cute, too." She consoles him.

Mick harrumphs, but falls silent as Obi-Wan Kenobi offers some sage advice to Luke Skywalker.

"Damn, I wish I was a Force ghost." Leonard tells no one. "That would be wild, right?"

* * *

As a week goes by with no sign of evil Time Masters (though as far as Leonard is concerned, that title is redundant), Sara officially calls off the state of emergency. It's about time (hah), too, because everyone is going stir-crazy, even Leonard.

"We got a time-quake." Nate announces, entering the bridge. "United States of America, 1970's."

"Groovy." Mick says, and Leonard smirks, remembering the bar fight last time they'd visited that era. That was a quality bar fight, as far as bar fights go.

"Let's go." Sara says, and presses the intercom. "We're going to be time-jumping in a minute. If you're not in your seats, good luck." It seems to be a good enough warning, because the rest of the team comes flying into their seats just as Sara presses the throttle forwards, grinning.

Leonard stands, as always these days. It's a strange feeling, to not feel the time jumps.

The others do, though. Nate and Amaya are hit the hardest, being new.

"I can't feel my fingers." Nate complains, while Amaya just grimaces.

"I thought it was fun." Mick says.

"You would." Sara says, but fondly, as she stands up and stretches. "Come on, newbies, we have to go." She says.

Leonard rolls his eyes; she was pretending like she hadn't once puked into Kendra's helmet after a long time jump.

"You puked into Kendra's helmet one time when we jumped to the Middle Ages." Mick reminds Sara as they troop together towards the exit, making a pit stop at the fabrication room. Len snickers, and so does Nate. Sara shoots Mick an unappreciative look.

They step outside into bright sunlight; this time, it seems they're somewhere less populated, like the woods or a forest.

"We're in Oregon." Sara explains to the crew, squinting up at the trees. "Nate caught a timequake here."

"What, is a mountain lion messing with future technology?" Ray asks. "I don't see a lot of civilization around here."

Leonard glances around. It's true; there's no houses or even a hiking trail. Len's never liked the woods much, though, anyway, having grown up in Central City. He'd never even been outside the city until Mick had forced him to go camping once, and Leonard still maintained the only reason his partner had done that was so that he could set fire to the giant Smokey the Bear sign.

Mick's thinking along the same lines. "Look at all this tinder." He says, hand resting on his heat gun. "Groovy."

"On that note," Sara says, "Mick, you're with me." Mick shoots her a grin. "Jax, Stein, you go together in cass there's trouble. Nate, Amaya, Ray, you stick together. We'll meet back at the _Waverider_ in an hour if we don't find anything suspicious."

"Aye, aye." Ray says, and he even makes it sound _sincere._

Leonard decides to give Mick a break and follow Ray and the others around for a while. (This may or may not be because he is fairly certain that Raymond, despite his Boy Scout training, is the most likely to die horribly in the woods. Leonard isn't saying.)

Ray, Amaya, and Nate go off one way while the rest of the crew go off in opposite directions. Leonard can distantly hear Jax teasing Stein about smoking weed while the professor splutters.

"This is gonna be fun!" Ray says. _Twenty bucks he mentions Eagle Scouts in the next five minutes,_ Leonard bets with himself. "You know," Ray says, "I actually got the highest wilderness survival badge available in my Boy Scout troop." Damn it. Leonard wishes he wasn't a ghost, if only for the fact that he'd have made a killing (hah) on bets already.

"Wow." Amaya says, sounding exceptionally unimpressed.

"Did you know that in England during World War I, they used girl scouts to carry messages?" Nate says.

"Please no history facts." Leonard groans.

"And the Boy Scouts were created in America in 1910 after a publisher took a trip to London and met a particularly helpful Boy Scout…"

"Oh, no." Leonard says. "Kill me now."

* * *

Amaya interrupts Ray and Nate's argument on which _Star Wars_ is the best. "Who's Kendra?"

Ray misses a step and stumbles, almost faceplanting into the brush.

Amaya's eyes widen. "Um, never mind." She says.

Ray waves a hand, though Len can't tell if it's at her or at the hand Nate keeps trying to offer him. "Oh, no, it's okay. Just took me by surprise is all." He says. He chews his lip as he tries to think of the best way to answer. "She was one of the members of the team." He says. "We were engaged."

"Oh." Nate and Amaya both say.

"Nah, it's okay." Ray says with a sunny smile.

"I didn't know there was anyone else on the team before us." Amaya says, surveying the trees for anything strange; probably the only one on the crew to actually be doing their job.

"Oh, yeah." Ray says. "We started out as nine."

"Nine?" Amaya asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, there was Kendra, and her soulmate, Carter. They left together." Ray says, ticking them off on his fingers.

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad." Nate says sympathetically. "I doubt they were _soulmates._ "

"They were." Ray says. "They were reincarnated hawk gods that were fated to come back to life every time they died and find each other."

"Ouch." Nate says.

"Yeah. Then there was Rip. He was a Time Master from the future. He's actually the one who recruited all of us. The _Waverider_ was originally his."

"I didn't know that." Amaya says, picking her way over a log with the help of, judging by the shape that emerges from her necklace, a monkey.

"Yeah, we don't actually know where - when, I mean - he is now. Kind of went AWOL after we got hit by an atomic bomb." Ray says. "Hey, I think we've seen this tree before."

It's true; Leonard might not know a whole lot about navigation but even he can tell they've been going in circles.

"Oh, yeah, we've been lost for the past fifteen minutes." Nate says.

"That's still not nine." Amaya says.

"Right." Ray says. "The last one was Snart."

"What happened to him?" Amaya presses.

Ray kicks at a rock, his eyes to the ground. "He's dead."

"Mostly." Leonard says. Now he _really_ wishes he had gone with Mick, damn it. He never did do this mushy stuff well.

"He was Mick's partner." Ray says.

"Oh." Amaya says. "That's why he's so…?"

"Sad?" Ray says. "Yeah."

Leonard pledges to give Raymond a wedgie from beyond the grave. He doesn't know how he's going to do it yet, but he's gonna.

"Hey, how many of you guys have actually died at one point or another?" Nate asks, changing the subject.

"Actually, most of us!" Ray says brightly. "They thought I was dead for like six months when I blew up my lab. Actually, I'm still presumed dead. And they thought professor Stein was dead for an entire year after he and the first Firestorm were caught in the particle accelerator explosion. We thought Mick was dead, but he was actually a time-travelling brainwashed assassin. Kendra and Carter of course died about five hundred times. And Sara actually died, but her sister brought her back to life."

Amaya shakes her head. "I should have stayed with the JSA."

* * *

All three of the Legends Len is following stop at once, putting a hand to their earpieces. Then they turn around and go the other way.

Leonard jogs behind, curious as to what the other teams may have found. He suspects Firestorm was actually just out in the woods transmutating rocks into various interesting objects, but he can't actually prove that.

The three groups converge in a clearing.

"Wait till you see what we found." Mick says, grinning wide and wild.

They troop over to the edge of the clearing, where Sara is standing with her hands on her hips, staring down at something. The Legends all look down.

"You're kidding me." Leonard says.

"Cool." Ray says.

"That's not-" Amaya cuts herself off before she gets any further.

"No way." Jax shakes his head. "No way those are Bigfoot tracks."

"Groovy." Mick says.

"Uh-uh." Jax says. "I'm not going to be the subject of a found-footage horror film!"

"A what?" Amaya asks.

"I agree with Jefferson." Stein says. "I think we should return to the _Waverider_ before whatever made these footprints finds us."

"Clearly this is what caused the Aberration. Bigfoot isn't real." Sara says.

"That's never been proven!" Ray squeaks. "I say we let time handle this one."

"Don't be a dork, haircut." Mick says, almost dreamily. "I've always wanted to flambé a Bigfoot."

"Bigfoot _isn't real_." Nate reminds them.

"I wonder how the jerky would taste." Mick ponders.

Sara rolls her eyes and taps her comm. "Gideon, where's the nearest town?" Sara listens for a moment. "Looks like we're walking." She says.

She's met with various grumbles, but everyone's too afraid of Sara to actually complain.

They troop in a pack towards civilization, during which time Mick has his lighter(s) taken away from him three times for fear of starting a forest fire, Ray trips twice, and Jax tries to get everyone to sing _Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall_ no less than twelve times.

Eventually, they reach a little settlement; obviously a vacation town in the winter but for now just a sleepy little place. Half the stores are closed down in deference to the season, giving the town a vacated, empty vibe.

"We should talk to some locals." Sara dictates.

"Those seem to be in short supply." Amaya says.

"One thing you can always count on being open in any town." Mick says. "The bar."

Sara grins.

* * *

The bar they find is seedy as hell, just like they like it. True to word, it's open, and filled with locals. An unused but lit jukebox sits in the corner while a tiny, grainy television sits in the corner.

"Try not to start any bar fights, everyone." Jax advises.

"I'm not promising that." Mick rumbles.

Jax grins and follows Nate to the corner where the jukebox and a couple of people hanging out are. The rest of the Legends disperse throughout the bar, Leonard following Mick.

Mick and Sara reach the bar at the same time, sliding neatly into place next to each other.

"What you looking for?" The bartender, sporting some _serious_ 70's hair, asks, tucking a glass under the counter with a wary glance at the rest of the Legends.

"Information." Sara says. "And a beer."

"What kind of information?" The bartender asks, setting two cheap drinks they don't recognize the brand of in front of Mick and Sara.

"We heard there's some kinda creature roaming these woods." Mick says, grinning crazily.

"Oh," The bartender's face clears. "You're some of _those_."

"Those?" Ray asks brightly, hopping into the seat next to Mick, who grunts. "What does that mean?"

"Monster hunters." The woman says. "Been crawling around ever since someone got that picture."

"Right." Sara says. "That's us!"

"So, you think there's actually Bigfoot lurking around somewhere out there?" Ray asks.

"Normally?" The bartender arches an eyebrow. "No. But now? I don't know. Hal heard something real weird when he was hiking, and there was a couple of hunters who came in, all spooked and saying something else got to the bears before them."

"Anyone ever tried to make Bigfoot jerky?" Mick asks, waggling an eyebrow. "Wonder if it tastes like chicken."

The bartender rolls her eyes. "Well, if you and your friends really want to catch Bigfoot, I would suggest Hunter's Point. That's where they took that picture."

"Thanks." Sara says. "Guys, you ready to go? Amaya?"

Amaya has, it seems, already taken down a man who got just a little too grabby. He's laying on the floor, groaning and clutching his stomach and… other places. "Yep." She says cheerfully.

* * *

"Looks the same as any other patch of mountain." Nate observes as Hunter's Point appears in front of them.

"I want to see Bigfoot." Ray says, scanning the trees around them.

"I wonder what kind of picture the bartender was talking about. " Sara says, scanning the woods. "Someone must have gotten a picture of the Aberration."

"Bigfoot only comes out at night." A voice says, and everyone jumps.

They turn to find a big, middle aged woman carting a few squirrel carcasses over her shoulder and accompanied by a large dog.

"How'd you know that was what we were looking for?" Amaya asks.

"You've all got that look." The woman says. "You want adventure and you won't stop till you find yourself right up in the middle of it."

"Sounds about right." Leonard mutters, and the dog growls. "Hey, I _like_ dogs." Leonard tells it, offended. It chuffs and settles down as if appeased by the words.

"Right." Sara says, and introduces all the Legends. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about this creature, would you?"

"Name's Mara." The woman says. "And I don't know what to tell you, 'cept it's not Bigfoot. Sorry to disappoint." She pats the dog on the head. "Walks on four legs, not two, and I could swear it's eyes glow green. Doesn't come out till dark. I hunt in the daytime, these days."

"Sounds cool." Ray says, bouncing on his toes. The woman gives him a look. "Not cool." He says.

"It's been killing things. Big things. Found a deer torn to shreds in the woods last week." Mara says. "Been taking Beanie here with me all week for protection." Beanie hears his name and rolls over happily. Ray can't resist and drops down to scritch the dog's belly, cooing.

"So if we wanted to get a look at it, we'd have to stay the night?" Nate says.

"Except you shouldn't go fooling around with things you don't understand." Mara says. "If I were you, I'd leave things like that alone." She clicks, and the dog stands to its feet, shaking its head.

"Got it." Sara says, and they wave as she disappears from sight.

"Are we actually gonna leave it alone?" Mick asks.

"No way." Sara says. "Come on, we're going back to the _Waverider_ to pick up some things. We're going camping."

"Ooooh." Ray says. "S'mores?"

* * *

Mick shifts. Cold nights like this make his burn scars itch; always have. Haircut's taking first watch outside, which Mick knows because he can hear him cheerfully whistling. Personally, Mick doubts that they're going to find anything of real substance in a damn Bigfoot myth, but given their lives he's not going to rule it out completely.

The firebug sits up and rubs at his face, surveying the cave the crew had found to spend the night in. The fire in the middle is still going strong, so Mick shifts closer to it, watching the firelight flicker off his sleeping teammates' faces and the walls.

"You're going soft, Mick." Mick darts his eyes back to the middle of the cave, where there's a new face staring into the fire, a wry smirk on his face. The firelight doesn't touch Leonard, though, just goes right through and bounces onto the light of Amaya's necklace.

Mick grunts. So a dream, then. Why couldn't he have normal dreams about naked chicks or something? Maybe a giant hamburger.

"Time was you couldn't have resisted a blaze like this one, Mick." Fake-Leonard says. He looks pleased and insufferable, like he always had. Mick guesses as things to hallucinate, your dead partner's not the _worst._ "All these people would be dead. You're all mushy inside for them."

"Am not." Mick grumbles, and Leonard turns to him, eyes wide and surprised as they make eye contact.

Mick jerks awake.

The hell.

He's been having weird dreams like that, lately, up to and including getting a song stuck in his head in Len's dumb warbling voice, like he and Lise used to do on stakeouts. Funny thing was, Mick couldn't remember him ever singing that song before.

Anyway, he needs to be getting more sleep, probably. No chance of that now, because Haircut's poking his head in. "Oh, hey, Mick, you're awake!" He says. "I saw something moving around outside."

"And you're scared to wake Sara up for nothing." Mick guesses.

"No!" Haircut says. "Yes. Will you come check it out with me?"

"Fine." Mick says, rising to his feet and just barely missing stepping on the kid half of Firestorm's fingers, who is too close for comfort anyway. "But just because I need to stretch."

"Okay." Haircut says. "This'll be fun! Bring a flashlight." And he pops his head back out again.

"Bring a flashlight, he says." Mick grumbles to himself. "Like I want to be stuck outside in the dark with only Haircut for company."

Mick could swear he hears an echoing laugh.

He grunts and kicks at Pretty Boy. "Keep watch." He says, and goes outside as Nate grumbles sleepily in the background.

"I think I saw glowing eyes, like the lady said." Ray says to Mick as the pyro thumbs on his flashlight.

"Flambé." Mick says hopefully, sure to keep the familiar weight of his heat gun at his side as he thumbs the lighter in his pocket. More than likely, the thing will turn out to be a dog or somethin', or a poor little creature everyone insists on protecting and they won't let him burn it, but it pays to be ready.

"You're not gonna flambé Bigfoot." Ray says. "It was over here." They crouch down over a patch of mud, listening to the sound of crickets and leaves rustling.

"That's a footprint, all right." Mick says. "Big one."

"I think we should get Sara and the others." Ray says, and Mick shrugs.

"We don't know when this footprint got here, Haircut." Mick's flashlight beam searches the ground for anything more, but finds nothing. "It's-" His nerves are already frazzled from his imaginary visitor earlier, so Mick doesn't blame himself when he jumps right along with Haircut as the lady from earlier appears out of nowhere, blinking in the light.

"I see you boys took my advice." Mara says dryly.

"Uh, we're lost?" Haircut tries feebly.

"Uh-huh." She says, and the dog comes bounding towards them, panting happily. It sits in front of Mick and _whines._

"What do you want?" He asks it. It whines again. Mick resolutely doesn't think of that time Len almost got them killed on a job because he'd seen some guys kicking the hell out of a puppy and stopped to help. Murder, he could stand. Animal abuse? No way. Stupid dog. Mick widens his eyes at it and it settles down.

"Well, since you're here, you find anything?" Mara asks, folding her arms.

"No." Ray says. Idiot.

"Hmm." The woman says, but pauses, frozen when an unearthly shriek rises up from the woods. Mick's eyebrow raises as the howl continues, growing louder and louder. The dog whines and takes off in the opposite direction.

"I think we should run." Ray suggests.

For once, Mick agrees with Haircut and they take off running, Mara hot on their heels, and, Mick realizes with no small degree of admiration, is quite a bit faster than Haircut.

Mick thumbs at his earpiece, shouldering his gun so he can run better. "Hey, Blondie, Haircut and I ran into a little trouble." He says.

"I know." Sara says. "The dog from earlier came and woke us up."

"Really?" Ray asks.

"Who are you two talking to?" Mara asks irritably, pushing back a low-hanging branch.

"Uh, no one." Ray says, and slows to a stop. "I don't see anything."

Mick stops right behind him. Just because they can't hear anything doesn't mean Bigfoot isn't lurking around the corner. "Your dog trained in rescue?" Mick asks Mara. It's the only thing that would explain the thing going straight for the team, not unless someone led it there, like… anyway, must be trained.

"No, he's not." Mara says. "What the _hell_ is going on?"

"Mick, Ray, we're on the way. You should try and keep moving." Sara says over the earpieces.

"Well," Ray explains. "It appears we're being chased by Bigfoot."

"You heard the boss." Mick says. "Get moving, Haircut." He gives the man a little push, too.

"I already told you that whatever that thing is isn't Bigfoot." Mara says, crossing her arms and refusing to move.

"Bigfoot or not, it can still eat us." Mick says, grinning with wide eyes. "Haircut, let's leave her." He knows he won't; kid is too much of a Boy Scout for that.

True to form, Ray levels him a look and makes a puppy face at Mara. "We have to run, really, it could be here any second-"

Mick searches the trees and fires up his heat gun. "Too late." He says. "Haircut, get that suit outta your pocket."

Ray, for his part, actually does what he's told for once and pulls the ATOM suit out of the pocket of his jacket, pulling it on with the press of a button. "What'd you see?" He asks, voice modulated by the suit. Something crashes out of the trees. "Never mind."

Their so-called Bigfoot most _definitely_ is not Bigfoot. It's huge and hulking, probably taller than Mick. It, as promised, has glowing greenish eyes and looks like it went twenty rounds with a pack of mountain lions. It's sort of like a mixture of a black dog and a bear, and Mick can smell it from where he's standing.

"That should _not_ be on Earth in the 70's." Ray says to himself, or maybe Mick, who knows; Haircut's weird and maybe he thought it was a fact Mick should know.

"Really?" Mick says. "I thought there were monsters running _all over_ the 70's."

Bigfoot-not-Bigfoot snarls, and Mick can tell pretty quick that thing's not friendly and cuddly.

Mara's starting to come to this conclusion, too. "The hell?" She says. "The _hell._ "

"Sara, guys, you might want to hurry." Ray squeaks, and fires up the repulsors on his suit, not actually willing to fire on an innocent animal in case it's not interested in attacking them. Mick has no such qualms, but he also doesn't want the full force of Haircut, Amaya the animal girl, and Jax's puppy dog eyes combined.

"Good, uh, doggy." Haircut says. "What are you, some sort of genetically mutated- _whoa_!"

Bigfoot lurches forward, claws scraping Ray's armor with a _clink_ and a spray of sparks.

"This is gonna be fun." Mick tells Mara, who's now holding some kind of hunting knife and looking determined. Mick sprints up to Haircut and shoulder-checks the beast out of the way, ducking as it swings for him.

Mick leans to the side as Haircut fires another repulsor blast, so close Mick probably would have lost a little hair had he had some. Mick shoots a burst of flame that hits Bigfoot's shoulder, rewarding him with the smell of burning flesh.

"We're almost there." Amaya says over the earpieces.

"I can't believe you went adventuring without me." Nate whines.

Mick grins and shoots another burst of fire, dodging Ray, who flies up above and drops a large rock on the thing. Nothing seems to really be slowing it down.

"I have an idea." Mick rumbles. "Haircut, how bout you get the lady out of here?"

Ray shoots him a disapproving look but grabs Mara by the underarms and flies away, probably going to return as soon as he puts her somewhere safe, because he's an idiot.

"Looks like I'm finally going to get my flambé." Mick says to himself and puts his heat gun on the highest setting, the one he reserved for nuclear meltdowns or psychotic Bigfoots. Bigfeet?

He sprays a huge burst of flame, completely consuming the thing and a couple'a trees, the Bigfoot screeching like anything. It's slowing down, that's for certain, and Mick watches in satisfaction as a burning branch breaks with a _crack_ and falls on it's head, leaving the creature prone. The flames lick at the Bigfoot's body, slowly eating up hair and teeth.

Mick watches for a while. One year, for Mick's birthday, Len had taken him out to California, to a wildfire that had been burning for a week already. He dressed Mick up like a firefighter and dropped him right in the middle of the blaze. It had been the best birthday Mick had ever had, not that he told that to Len, just had gotten back in the truck (which had the AC running full blast and a fondly irritated, overheated partner inside) sooty and grinning.

Mick watches the fire drop another tree and consume a patch of wildflowers. He looks contemplatively for a minute before a furious face storms towards him.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing." Snart drawls, angry as all get out. He's accompanied by a phantom twinge of frost around Mick's chest. "Get the hell out of here, you idiot, you're going to get _killed._ " Mick jumps, realizing now he's cut off almost all his escape routes, and is slowly losing options for a safe getaway. Rookie, rookie mistake for a man who's been lighting fires for his entire life.

Mick scowls; great, even his hallucination Len is smarter than him. He storms off, calculating the distance before jumping over a little patch of flame, delighted as he feels his bootsoles peel and start to melt with the heat.

He lands safe on the other side and grins, watching the rest of the team watch him with wide eyes. Firestorm is already merged, white eyes staring and probably ready to fly in after Mick.

"Bigfoot's dead." He tells them, pleased with the fire and with his work, and ignoring the memory of the fury in Len's eyes. "I didn't get to make any Bigfoot jerky, though."

* * *

In typical Legends style, they don't actually figure out the whole extent of the time aberration until it's already over. Leonard rolls his eyes as he watches Jax try to convince Mara that nothing happened at all, no, nothing, why do you ask?

Sara's, of course, pissed that Mick and Ray went off without the team, but, Leonard can tell, not surprised.

"It appears, from the… remains Mr. Rory left us, that the creature had been genetically modified, probably from somewhere in the 24th century." Stein informs the group.

"Yeah, I think it probably fell off a Time Pirate's ship back in the 70's and they never bothered to pick it up, cause, you know; they're evil." Jax says.

"The timeline is now back to normal." Gideon informs everyone.

Leonard rolls his eyes; he should hope that killing the giant monster would fix time. For a group of fairly smart people, they sure were dumb.

"But it didn't do anything bad until we got there." Sara says. "How come it messed with history so bad?"

"It appears Mara Williams has a great great granddaughter that will grow up to become the first person to walk on Mars, as well as a number of other significant descendants, such as a far distant relative that discovers the beginning theories of time travel. Had you not intervened, the creature would have killed , causing significant damage to the timeline, and, perhaps, the world." Gideon says pleasantly.

"Yay, we saved the world!" Nate says. "Or, well, I guess Mick did with his flamethrower."

"I didn't get to taste cooked Bigfoot." Mick says, though Len sees he's not really mad about it.

"Next time." Amaya says.

"No." Sara says.


	5. Chapter 5

"You're being broodier than usual." Raymond tells Mick, who's at the counter of the kitchen nursing a beer. His muddy boots take up another barstool, making it clear the pyro does _not_ want company. Ray, of course, sits down in the other chair. "Not that you're not usually broody, it's just very apparent today."

"Go away, Haircut." Mick says, and Leonard is a little surprised to note that he's not actually completely sincere.

"Mick." Raymond says.

"Raymond." Mick says.

"Scintillating conversation." Leonard remarks.

Ray sighs. "I didn't want to do this." He says, and hops off his barstool, going over to the little fridge in the corner. Mick and Leonard both watch him curiously. When Palmer stands back up from his crouch, he's holding two cupcakes.

Mick's eyes go big. "We might make somethin' out of you yet, Haircut." He says admiringly, and takes the offered pastry.

"So…?" Ray asks.

"I think I'm goin' crazy." Mick says, mouth full of cupcake. Leonard has _told_ him not to talk with his mouth full.

"No you're not." Ray says automatically. "Why?"

Mick hesitates again, and Ray slides a glass of milk in front of him.

" _IkeepseeingSnart."_ He mutters.

"Oh." Ray says. "That's weird."

"Eloquent, Raymond." Leonard says, shifting nervously.

"I keep seeing weird stuff, and sometimes I think I see him out of the corner of my eye." Mick admits, polishing off his cupcake. "That dumb ring keeps freezing."

Ray tilts his head. Because he's Raymond, he doesn't dismiss the notion outright, like a normal person. "Let me see." He says, and Mick hands over the ring, apparently lulled into compliance by cupcakes or else resigning himself to Ray's extreme helpfulness.

Ray's seen it before, when he checked it for devices, but he holds it up again, examining it critically. He tilts it towards the light. "Hmm, it's not-"

Leonard darts forward and taps the ring, spotting his opportunity. Ray yelps and drops it, looking surprised. "It was cold!" He says.

"I told you." Mick says, but he looks almost relieved.

"I wonder if any of the others have noticed anything strange?" Ray says. "You know, I _have_ been finding my tools in the most random places while I'm working."

Mick shrugs.

* * *

"So, what, you think he's like, haunting you?" Sara asks.

"You got brought back to life by a magical hot tub." Mick points out. "Not that crazy."

"Well, have you noticed anything?" Ray asks the group. Leonard watches in fascination. He hadn't actually thought these idiots would actually try to _do_ something.

"Well, the food processor had that glitch." Jax says. "And there's nothing wrong with the thing, I checked."

"Someone has been short-sheeting my bed." Stein says. "I assumed it was one of you."

"And the weirdness with the _Waverider._ " Nate adds.

Mick has remained characteristically silent during all of this discourse, arms folded in the corner. The ring is still around his neck, on top of his shirt now and glinting in the light.

"What do you think, Mick? Are we being haunted?" Sara says. "You knew him the best."

"Dunno." Mick says. "But if there's a thief that can steal death, it's him."

"I have an idea!" Jax says. "It's kind of terrible."

Mick grunts.

* * *

"Toys-R-Us?" Amaya asks, staring up at the colorful sign and looking doubtful. "Why does the R have to be backwards?"

"Whimsy." Mick tells her, and Sara snorts.

"Come on, they probably have a new shipment of Flash toys in there." Jax says. "I'm picking some up for him."

"We know the Flash?" Nate asks faintly as they enter.

"Uh, duh." Sara says. "You met the Green Arrow. Those two meet up for playdates all the time."

"Right." Nate says.

"The Green Arrow actually taught me how to fight. And, fun fact, saved me one time when I was stuck the size of a potato chip." Ray says cheerfully. "Oooh, I see what we're looking for."

Stein rolls his eyes, but follows the group as they cram into an aisle stacked with board games and stuffed animals. A little girl stares at them and then shrugs, grabbing what she came for and then leaving. She must be from Central. All the weird stuff happens in Central City.

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever done in my life." Mick complains, but doesn't do anything further to protest, grabbing what they need and shoving it in Ray's hands.

"A…" Amaya lifts an eyebrow and reads the package. "Ouija board?"

The thing is terrible, plastic and certain to break the minute they hit a time wave and the _Waverider_ rocks a little bit. There's a huge 8+ sticker plastered on the front, along with a happy claim that it glows in the dark.

"I told you it was a bad plan." Jax says, shrugging. "But I think Snart would appreciate the humor, anyway."

"What gave you this idea?" Sara asks, though she sounds more amused than anything else.

"Some friends and I used one once at a sleepover."

"So? You see any ghosts?" Raymond asks.

"Nope. One kid peed his pants though. The kid's big brother snuck in and turned out all the lights. It was awesome."

"I don't understand young people." Stein says as they approach the front of the store.

Jax sets the board on the counter proudly. The teenager working the register raises an eyebrow at why, exactly, so many grown adults need to go into a Toys-R-Us to buy a game, but scans it through.

"Look, it's you guys!" Nate says, grabbing at a display sitting by the conveyor belt as Mick pays with a wallet everyone is pretty sure isn't actually his. .

"What?" Sara asks.

"Well, some of you." Nate admits. "Look, a Black Canary, ATOM, even a Heatwave." There's a Captain Cold, too, but no one mentions that.

"Heatwave is on the villain side." Amaya notes. Mick grins. The teenager behind the counter looks concerned, glancing back and forth from the display, which has a comic book picture of heroes and villains fighting and bright sale stickers, to the group.

Admittedly, several of the characters look nothing like them (Black Canary's outfit is _not_ that sexy), but the resemblance is there.

"Are you…?" The teenager asks, then wisely shuts their mouth as Legends stare disapprovingly. "Never mind. That'll be twenty-four eighty."

* * *

"Should we light candles?" Ray asks cheerfully. Leonard rolls his eyes, echoed by the rest of the team.

"We're trying to summon Snart, not his grandmother." Mick says. He looks strangely nervous, Leonard thinks, and he must be, if he was making jokes about Grandma Snart. The woman had whacked Mick's fingers with a spoon and made him re-tile her bathroom three times before it was to her liking.

"Fine." Ray says. "If it doesn't work because of the candles, don't blame me."

"Might I remind everyone that ouija boards aren't actually real?" Amaya says.

"Well, yeah." Sara says. "But neither are ghosts."

"Good point." Leonard says, putting his chin in his hands. He's relaxing on top of a table of Rip's stuff, because it's out of the way. Everyone else is gathered in a sort of loose, awkward semi-circle in the captain's office. No one wants to be the first one to sit on the floor.

Mick grunts. "I feel stupid enough doing this." He says. "Let's just get it over with."

Jax grins and pulls the board out of the box, wincing a little as he slightly rips one of the corners getting it out of the plastic. It's still horribly tacky in the light, and a little paper warning falls out of the box telling them not to mess with malevolent spirits or those who might have wished others harm in life.

Mick and Leonard both grin at that one.

Surprisingly, Stein is the first to lever himself to the floor, setting the board in front of him. When the others stare at him, the professor shrugs. Everyone follows his lead, even Amaya.

They put the little pointer thing ( _planchette,_ Jax says exasperatedly) on the board and wait a moment.

Leonard shrugs. He doesn't actually have anything to lose. He hops off the table and walks over to the board, where Ray has closed his eyes (the only one to do so) and is saying something which Leonard ignores.

The ghost reaches out curiously and pokes the pointer. Nothing so much as wiggles. "Great." He says. "Who would have thought you got ripped off by an overpriced toy at a chain store?"

"I don't think it's working." Amaya says.

"Really?" Mick snaps. "We didn't notice."

"Mick." Sara warns.

Leonard pokes at the planchette again, to no avail. Blowing out an exasperated puff of air from his mouth, he glances at Mick.

"Aha." Leonard says. He abandons the board and sits next to his partner. He pokes at the ring, and Mick jolts.

"Everything okay?" Ray asks, having given up on chanting.

In response, Mick pulls out the ring from under his shirt. He weighs it in a hand for a moment. "He's a smart one. Too damn smart for his own good." He says, and places it on the board.

Pleased with his success, Leonard returns to the board and pushes his ring forward with a finger.

Despite the purpose of this activity, almost everyone screeches when the ring inches forwards.

"Len?" Mick asks, hesitantly.

Leonard stares down at the board. There's no punctuation, and spelling out all of his letters individually is going to be tedious. But he never exactly was known for being a man of few words.

HOWDY MICK

Mick snorts, a real grin lighting his face for the first time in what Leonard realizes feels like a _long_ time. "You're _such_ a jerk." He says.

"He missed you." Jax translates.

Len knows.

* * *

"How do we know it's Mr. Snart?" Stein asks.

I DONT STAND A GHOST OF A CHANCE AT CONVINCING YOU

"It's him." Everyone except Nate and Amaya say.

"How do you know?" Nate asks.

IM DEAD SERIOUS ABOUT PUNS

"Stop." Sara says, but she sounds happy, content.

I KNEW MY PUN SKILLS WOULD COME BACK TO HAUNT ME

Everyone groans.

Mick chuckles. "If anyone could come back to life just to make puns, it would be you." He says, swiping at his eyes surreptitiously.

YEAH IM ON FIRE WITH THE HEAT JOKES

" _Stop._ " Sara says. Her eyes are suspiciously misty, too, and Jax keeps wiping at his face with a sleeve. Ray is wearing a constant, goofy grin that makes Leonard wants to punch him, and even the professor looks a little emotional.

I FOUND YOUR SABOTEUR

"The mystery blood?" Mick realizes.

A TIME MASTER WHO DIED IN THE OCULUS

"How many ghosts are there?" Amaya asks curiously.

SO FAR, ONLY PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN KILLED BY SOMETHING STRANGE

"What do you mean, so far?" Sara asks. "Who else have you seen?"

I SOCKED THE TIME MASTER IN THE NOSE

Right, because that's not deflecting at all. He doesn't think Sara needs to know about his pun-off with Laurel Lance quite yet.

"That where the blood came from?" Mick asks, and Leonard moves his ring to the _yes_ on the board.

"Nice." Mick says approvingly.

"Did you see where he went?" Nate asks, speaking up for the first time.

DISAPPEARED

And if he had been speaking to anyone else but Mick or maybe Lisa, there would be no way they could pick up on the annoyance in there. As it is, Mick chuckles. "Ha, Lenny lost a ghost."

Leonard spells out something rude that Jax probably shouldn't see, but does anyway.

"Mr. Snart." Professor Stein scolds, blushing, though no one can tell if that's his feelings or his counterpart's.

Leonard grins, settling in on the floor. He'll never admit just how good this feels, to talk to someone who's not dead.

SORRY

Leonard's fairly certain it doesn't take Mick this time to translate the insincerity of his tone.

"That said, we _did_ miss you, Mr. Snart." Stein says, face softening.

I CANT BELIEVE I MISSED NINJAS

Mick's face lights up. "That was _so_ cool."

* * *

Everyone has questions and things to say, and Leonard even manages not to be sarcastic for most of them, which he's proud of.

"How do you think you exactly managed this state? Do you think it's a state of quantum locking as a result of the Oculus or something else…" Stein trails off, more lost in his own mind than interested in hearing anyone else's scientific theories, already most likely doing calculations in his head.

Leonard grins, and is about to push the ring forward again to make another terrible quip, but jerks his head to the side instead. He could swear he heard something strange…

Leonard ignores the ring for a moment and surveys the room. He catches something out of the corner of his eye, and before he can blink, Reeves is tackling him from the side. Leonard grunts and falls over with a thud which rattles the board and the ring.

Len kicks his way free and stands, circling the other ghost like a caged tiger. "You're back." He notes. The man's nose still looks crooked, he notes with no small amount of pleasure.

"I am." Reeves grins sharply, sharper than Leonard would prefer.

"The ship is in one piece." Leonard notes again.

Reeves shrugs, going for mysterious, probably. "For now."

Leonard narrows his eyes at him.

"Snart?" Jax asks in the background, glancing up at the ceiling like he might find a wayward ghost there, but Leonard is a _little_ busy for that at the moment.

"Hm." Leonard says, and tackles Reeves right back. They tumble through the wall and out into the cockpit, where Leonard hits the metal with a loud bang. The two men grapple, but unfortunately, Reeves is a little more prepared this time and actually gets one or two shots in.

Leonard takes a cut to his cheekbone and what is probably a dislocated shoulder before the two separate and begin eyeing each other again. Reeves is unquestionably worse off, the broken nose from earlier dripping blood again and with at least two broken ribs.

But Leonard didn't survive so long in a world full of cutthroat murderers for nothing. He knows when something fishy is up.

"So," He says, "You know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Reeves, because he's a Time Master, actually falls for it. "Oh, you would think that, wouldn't you, with your tiny little brain?"

Leonard doesn't roll his eyes, because he's a _gentleman._ "Yeah?" He says. "Seems like you're making the same mistakes over and over again."

Reeves sneers. "It takes a ghost to fight a ghost. So what does it take to fight humans?"

Leonard freezes (hah). "Oh." He says, and lunges for Rip's office.

Reeves, though caught off guard himself, manages to intercept. Leonard slams an elbow into Reeves' side, but the Time Master plays dirty and takes Leonard with him when he slams into the wall. The lights above flicker menacingly, as do the ones in Rip's office, as far as Leonard can see through the glass.

"You'll never warn them in time." At some point, Snart had gotten Reeves directly in the mouth, which was now bleeding, too, making his face a gory mess. Not that Leonard is unscathed; he's fairly certain now that his shoulder is dislocated and there's a cut stretching out on his hairline. "I've orchestrated this all perfectly."

Leonard grins roguishly (hah).

"Don't you know? _There are no strings on me._ "

The thief turned hero kicks out and something in the Time Master's shin breaks with a _snap._ Leonard hits him in the face once more for good measure and sprints back to Rip's office.

"I think maybe we should give up." Nate is saying, as everyone stares at the stagnant ring.

"Oh, no you don't." Leonard says, and dives for it. He can hear Reeves beginning to stir, and it's only a matter of time before he limps his way back in.

"Oh, wait!" Ray says, watching the ring wobble. "A… L… E… X…"

"A." Mick realizes, snatching his heat gun. " _Alexa. Get down!_ "

Mick drops to the floor, dragging Ray with him, and everyone else goes too, Sara pushing Nate down when it's clear he's too new at this to react. Not a moment later, the room explodes with sparks, and Amaya can't help but scream as the place she'd been leaning on shorts out.

Reeves, bloodier than ever, steps directly through the wall. Leonard backs up, sending the ring skittering off to the side. Mick grabs it and threads it back through the chain before placing it around his neck once again. Though Leonard appreciates the sentimentality, he does _not_ appreciate his partner's priorities in a crisis.

"Gideon, what's going on?" Sara yells over the sounds of blaster fire on the _Waverider's_ hull.

"It appears we are being fired on by Time Pirates." Gideon says.

Sara spits out a curse in some language that is not English and makes her way to the door. The ship is still rocking and bucking like a raft lost at sea, making her stumble.

Mick is still shouldering the heat gun as he helps a couple of the others to their feet, and makes his way out to the cockpit with Sara.

"Two ships." She reports. "Wonder how Snart knew?"

Len grins sharply, still watching Reeves.

"It doesn't matter that you warned them." Reeves says, though the look on his face is sour enough that Leonard suspects that it does matter. "They'll all be gone soon, anyways."

The rest of the crew makes their way into the jumpseats, strapping themselves in lest they fall with the turbulence. Above their heads, something else explodes into sparks and debris.

"I'm going to the engine room!" Jax shouts above the din. Sara gives him a thumbs up, and the young man unstraps from his seat and makes his way to the door.

"How'd you do this?" Len asks Reeves. "I didn't think you'd support criminals, not with this whole Lawful Good thing you got going on."

Reeves folds his hands behind his back, smiling evilly. As someone who once made a living being professionally evil and dramatic, Leonard is offended by the sense of style.

"I am not limited to silly child's toys to communicate, like yourself. I am a Time Master. I am infinitely more powerful. I am-"

"Yeah," Leonard interrupts him, "You paid them, didn't you?"

Sara grits her teeth in the captain's chair as she maneuvers the _Waverider_ through a patch of fire, and Mick is alert with the heat gun, eyes roaming the ship. Nate has inadvertently turned himself to steel, it seems, and is gripping the arms of his jumpseat so hard the metal is warping a little.

"Not to worry, _criminal._ " Reeves spits. "I have no intention of following through on payment to the likes of them. They're almost as bad as your own crew."

"Aw," Leonard says. "I'm flattered."

Ray suits up as the ATOM. "I'm going to help Jax."

"So you plan to take them out as soon as they take us out." Len says. "That's cold."

Already, his mind is racing through a thousand possibilities and scenarios even as his demeanor remains calm; what's the best way to take out a ship full of pirates?

"You planted a bomb." Leonard guesses, knowing he struck a nerve as Reeves' eyes narrow.

"You will never know the extent of my genius. My capacity for thought is far superior-"

"Oh," Leonard says, " _Shut up._ "

He slams Reeves in the nose for a _third_ time (you'd think the guy would learn) and dives through the wall.

The Time Master will catch up eventually, Leonard knows, but Snart has home advantage and a solid head start.

Leonard slips through a heating duct and out through a secret compartment in the floor; seriously, someone should have talked to Rip about his penchant for paranoia.

"There has been a hull breach." Gideon announces pleasantly from a speaker somewhere. "The time pirates have boarded."

Leonard changes tack and hurls himself into the nearest wall, emerging in Sara's room.

He can hear Reeves still monologuing in the hallway outside, heading towards the engine room, just as Leonard had hoped. _Idiot._

Len instead heads back to the bridge, running as fast as he can. Reeves may be an idiot, but even he will be able to tell Leonard isn't with Jax and Ray.

When Leonard reaches the bridge, everyone is out of their jumpseats and geared up for a fight. Since no one is looking at the ouija board anyway, Leonard sighs and slows down a little, skidding slightly.

"Where do you think your friend went?" Amaya asks, touching her necklace.

"I-" Mick says, and freezes.

Leonard has his hands clutched in Mick's jacket, one hand on his shoulder and one hand around his ring, ice crackling from where his skin touches the fabric.

"...Hi." Len says.

"Your hands are _really_ cold." Mick says.

Leonard laughs. The movement causes the cut on his forehead to open and start bleeding again.

"The hell?" Mick asks.

"Turns out a ghost can bleed if it's another ghost that did it to him." Leonard says.

"Huh." Mick says. "Is there a reason your creepy ghost hands are groping me?"

Leonard smiles again, but shakes his head. "The crazy Time Master planted bombs on the crazy Time Pirate's Timeships."

"Why does everything have to have the word _time_ in it?" Mick asks.

"Because the people who're in charge of the naming aren't as smart as the kid who gave us our names. Now, you got the plan?" No plan has actually been discussed, but to Leonard it's obvious.

"Like Ohio?" Mick says. "Got it."

"Great." Leonard says. "Now, I should probably run before Reeves realizes I tricked him-" Leonard catches sight of the Time Master storming through the wall and lets his eyes widen before he lets go of Mick, feeling the connection break with an almost tangible snap.

"What the hell just happened, Mick?" Sara asks somewhere in the background, and Leonard ignores Mick's brusque explanation in favor of smirking at Reeves.

"What did you tell him?" He asks. " _What did you tell him?_ "

Leonard shrugs. "We were catching up; you know, we're old friends."

The Time Master takes a step closer, and Leonard takes a step away.

 _Like Ohio,_ he reminds himself. Easy. Except for the part where he got shot last time.

Leonard grins. The harder the heist is to pull off, the more fun.

* * *

"I'm not so sure about this, Mick." Sara says, and Mick grunts, like she doesn't know he'd be doing it with or without her permission. She's scary smart like that, Mick thinks. He's not sure if he gets along with her because of that, or because of the day they'd spent some time after Len's death brutally punching each other in the guise of sparring. It let off the heat, metaphorically speaking, for both of them.

"Snart's sure." Mick says. He's just the dumb brute; he'll do what the boss tells him.

"All right." Sara says. "Everyone, get out. Firestorm, get up here just in case. I'll send the others down to watch the engine room and fight off the pirates."

Mick can hear the sounds of Nate punching people through the open doorway; the sound of steel on face is very easy to tell.

Mick fires up his heat gun, feeling the customary warmth seep through his gloves.

Like Ohio, huh? Except for the part where Mick had gotten stabbed in Ohio.

This was going to be _fun._


	6. Chapter 6

Even back when the Flash had tricked Mick and Leonard into crossing the streams of their guns, the two of them had already known what happened when you mixed extreme heat and extreme cold. It was something that had been put to the test in Ohio, quite a few years before the scarlet speedster had lightning-bolted his way into the world.

Of course, they'd been using C-4 and liquid nitrogen, but the concept was probably the same with bombs and ghost powers. Who knew Leonard's life would get _weirder_ after he moved away from the city filled with metas and mutant gorillas?

Len gasps for air somewhere around the kitchen, out of breath. Reeves might be a Time Master, but Leonard had known this ship better than anyone else the day he'd stepped foot on it. It's in his nature to map the place out for the quickest exit, the best hiding place, the dead corners. It gives him a distinct advantage.

He pauses as he hears footsteps again. They're uneven, limping from Leonard's attack earlier. _Seriously?_ There's determined, and then there's _determined._

Right: Step one, kill the Time Pirates. Step two, kill the ghost.

Len _has_ to get to that bomb; the whole plan depends on that unless he wants Mick to be burned to a crisp, along with probably everyone else on board, a fraction of whom Leonard actually cares about.

Leonard makes a break for it through the corridor as soon as he hears Reeves disappear from earshot, accidentally running through Raymond on the way. Raymond shivers, then uses his repulsors to fly down the hallway. Leonard makes it to the docking bay, noting the Time Pirates had sealed the doors so none of the Legends could access their ships.

Well, that's no problem; not when you're a ghost and a thief to boot.

Leonard would consider keeping this thing, if only for the fact that it would make stealing things so much easier. But then, he considers, where's the fun in that?

* * *

"The bomb's outside corridor three." A familiar drawl says in Mick's ear, though this time Leonard doesn't actually appear in the flesh. "I couldn't carry it further than that. I think Raymond's near there." Mick grins widely, catching Len's irritation, before telling Haircut to pick it up for them.

"This is creepier than before." Mick tells Leonard, feeling a ghost of a breath on his shoulder.

"Oh, let me put your complaint in the ghost customer service box. Oh, wait, the only other ghost around here is evil and crazy so I guess I have to answer. I don't care."

"No need to be rude." Mick rumbles, trying not to smile. "You sure this will work?"

"Uh, kinda." Len says.

"Good enough for me." Mick says, and he can _feel_ Len's dumb grin.

"Snart here?" Jax-or Firestorm, Mick supposes, judging by the white eyes and uniform- asks. Mick claps him (them?) on the shoulder.

"Yes, and I feel so loved." Leonard says, wavering into view for a moment, still clutching at the ring around Mick's neck.

"Whoa." Firestorm says, then what's definitely Jax grins; "Awesome."

"Not awesome if we blow ourselves up. See, I'm selfish. I want to be the only ghost around here. Sorry, no exceptions." Leonard fades again from view, blinking out like a TV with a bad connection. Mick lets go of Firestorm's shoulder and makes like he's wiping his hand on his pants, which makes the younger man roll his eyes fondly.

"Got it!" Haircut swoops in, because of course he couldn't just walk like a normal person. "I don't think it was very safe to leave a bomb lying on the floor, though."

Mick chokes on a laugh and doesn't have to see Snart to see the glare his partner is levelling at him. "Thanks, Haircut." Mick says instead, snatching it out of his hand harshly lest he seem too nice.

"Glad to help!" Raymond says. "I'm gonna go help Sara round the pirates up." He rockets off again, registering the gratitude with a ridiculously large smile and a thumbs-up.

At least now Mick knows he's not imagining the ghostly, mocking laughter coming from his side.

* * *

Leonard bounces on his toes; everything is set up for what they need. Unfortunately, a lot of what they need relies on a dead thief who has only recently been able to interact with anything at all, much less display any impressive ghost powers. Len doesn't _like_ relying on unknown variables, not even himself.

It doesn't matter now, though, because the rest of the Legends have done their jobs, and now the Time Pirates are gathered in the main room of the Waverider, empty except Firestorm, Mick, Leonard, and the jumpseats. The door to Sara's office is firmly closed, as Leonard checks with a little swing of his head. No use destroying everything in there if they don't need to.

The pirates stop at the doorway, confused. Mick's smirking like he's just seen (or set) a five-alarm fire, while Firestorm looks like they're battling for Jax's beaming grin and the professor's smug calm. Reeves storms in a moment after, setting eyes on Leonard and scowling.

Len waves with one hand, smirking coolly.

"Looks like everyone's here for the party." He says.

"You fool." Reeves says, because apparently this bad guy learned all his bad guy lines from _Star Wars._ Again, Leonard is offended. "You think that I cannot connect to my troops from here?"

He pulls out a little black device and types on it rapidly as the pirates begin to shuffle in the background. Why does the evil ghost get all the cool ghost devices? Leonard is lodging a complaint with _somebody._

As Reeves presses the final button, the pirates all receive a little _ping,_ like a cell phone notification. One tilts his device enough that Leonard; and probably Mick and Firestorm as well, can read it. _KILL THEM._

Reeves takes a further step inside, standing aside as the pirates begin to rush them, trampling all over each other.

"Now, Snart?" Mick asks, leaning on the wall. Len sends a wave of ghostly cold in that direction as confirmation, and Mick slams his hand onto the section of wall his duster had been covering, activating the bomb stuck there.

Firestorm swoops up Mick and they both tumble out the door and out of sight. The doors lock firmly behind them.

"You're using my own bomb against me?!" Reeves raves. "I cannot be killed by this; I am stronger than fire and death!"

"Sure, sure." Leonard says. "But how well will you do when you're free floating out in time?" Grinning at the befuddled look on the Time Master's face, Leonard shoves him out, out and through the wall and the bulkhead, where he falls aimlessly into space. A rather anticlimactic end, which suits Len perfectly.

Now to deal with the other problem.

The pirates are beginning to panic, and with good reason. The bomb is steadily counting down, and nothing they're doing to stop it is working. Had they more time, Leonard suspects one of them would wise up and actually try to pilot the ship; after all, they were in the _control room._ It seems, though, that like their employer, these pirates aren't too bright.

The problem here is that an uncontained fire on a spaceship is not a good thing. At all.

It's why Jax and Stein had initially refrained from merging on the _Waverider_ at all, concerned about their relative untestedness causing hull damage. And fire would do that, especially big ones like the detonation of a large bomb.

That was where Leonard and Ohio came in.

A bomb would rip through the bulkhead, rendering the room unusable at best and killing the entire crew at worst.

But, like the Scarlet Speedster had so _helpfully_ pointed out, hot and cold cancel each other out.

The bomb counts down to less than ten seconds, and Leonard takes the moment to center himself.

Like Captain Cold and Heatwave's guns crossing each other, the presence of the extreme heat of a bomb and the extreme cold of a ghost with frost issues should cancel each other out, creating an intense shockwave in the process. This, hopefully, will kill the pirates and refrain from killing the crew. Well, the members of the crew that _aren't_ already dead, that is.

The bomb counts down to one. Well, it's now or never.

He stretches out a hand as fire begins to race towards him and the pirates, feeling the shock of cold rising from his palms already.

It's cold, and hot, and cold and burning, and Leonard is falling through the Oculus all over again -


	7. Chapter 7

It takes Leonard Snart ten seconds to realize he's not dead (again). Ten to realize he's lying on the floor where the bomb had gone off, and three to realize that it's not a destroyed chunk of airless metal. Twenty seconds to be happy about that, and ten more seconds to realize he's still a ghost.

Leonard sits up. He feels like he just had a drinking contest with the Flash, or worse, Sara. If hangovers had hangovers that got hit with hammers in the head a few times, it would feel like this. He holds a hand to his head and surveys the room.

Mick is sitting in his jumpseat, eyes tight and Leonard's ring displayed on the outside of his shirt.

Jax sits next to him in his own chair, reading a book about quantum mechanics, but really taking the excuse to dart nervous little glances over at Mick. Raymond is snoozing at the holographic table Gideon sometimes likes to pop the 3D monstrosity she calls a face onto. Leonard realizes there's an untouched ouija board sitting on the table.

Sara and Amaya are playing a quiet game of cards in the corner, which Sara seems to be winning unabashedly, by the look on Amaya's face. Stein and Nate are having a soft debate over some chart or another.

All in all, Leonard takes it as a very good sign that they're not dead. Leonard stands dizzily to his feet, glancing around to see if anyone has noticed the not-dead thief amongst their midst. They haven't, but Leonard does notice that the tightness behind Mick's eyes isn't unique to his partner, but commonplace in everyone.

A guy would almost be touched.

"Do you see-?" Jax asks Mick.

"No." Mick snaps.

Leonard grins. Who knew the loss of someone already dead could make a group of people so _sad_? Like he said, almost enough to make a guy tear up. If he wasn't a cool, hardened criminal, that is.

Leonard shakes off the last of his lingering headache (remind him not to do that again anytime soon; the end result was _killer_ (hah.)) and walks over to Raymond's chosen napping area.

He puts a finger on the planchette; and _flings_ it right into Raymond's nose.

The ATOM awakens with a snort, looking around wildly for an intruder while everyone stares at the piece, which is now on the ground.

Leonard grins; he always was good at making an entrance.

"Leonard?" Mick asks, and Leonard goes over to softly press a hand to the ring. "Damn, why are your hands always so cold?"

* * *

Leonard watches Sara, with a little more bounce in her step, plot a course for 2016. They have Ideas, it seems. The _Waverider_ is positively brimming with enthusiasm as everyone trips over each other to speak, almost giddy.

"And you know, now that Cisco has his vibing powers I'm sure that we can talk to him about a solution; that guy's a genius, he saved me from some robotic bees once-"

"Ollie knows a man goes by the name of John Constantine, and I'm pretty sure one of them owes one of them a favor-"

"I was doing some research on ghost sightings in history, and I'm pretty sure-"

"I's fascinating. I have some theories involving the phased shifts of your molecules and the heightened cold weather state you seem to be emanating-"

"I might have some contacts in the JSA or in my old tribe who can help you out-"

"Man, I'll build anything that needs to be built, plus I'm pretty sure my transmutation skills are getting way better; you know, it's too bad you were dead when I liquified Savage's evil rock, it was super cool-"

Mick sits among the chatter next to Leonard as the _Waverider_ makes their jump. "Welcome back, Len." He mutters, and Leonard allows himself one of his rare, genuine _beaming_ smiles.

He loves these people.

He would just _die_ for them.

(Hah.)


End file.
